Albert Pujols won his second MVP award, edging his top competition, first baseman Lance Berkman Ryan Howard, in the BBWAA’s vote.

As we wrote back in October, Pujols had a marvelous season, even if he was second in our Sabermetric MVP rankings. The BBWAA has come in for some criticism, not the least of which was having three of its writers cast RoY ballots for a player who wasn’t even a rookie (not to mention their ridiculous pick of Dustin Pedroia as AL MVP today). Is the criticism deserved? Let’s look at the recent history of NL MVP voting: Listed below is each of the last five season’s BBWAA pick, our Sabermetric pick (which, granted, isn’t the end-all-be-all method for determining the MVP; just the best we’ve seen!) and Albert Pujols:

Including their excusable pick this year and their monstrous choice last year, the BBWAA hasn’t gotten the NL MVP right since 2004, when the winner, because of his longtime PED use, was both literally and figuratively head-and-shoulders above the runner-up. As for Albert’s claim to the award, he’s actually ahead in the game. By Sabermetric MVP rights, he should’ve only won one MVP award over the period in which he has won two. Not that we’re complaining much about this year’s win, since he and Berkman were so close.

As fans and writers deliberate over, pontificate on, rumor-monger about and wait for offseason transactions in the quintessential "hurry-up-and-wait" season of life, it’s fun to remember that Hot Stove League is a tradition that baseball fans have shared for a century.

A friend of ours, whose childhood was regrettably bereft of baseball, recently wondered about the origins of "Hot Stove League." Our handy 1967 edition of Zander Hollander’s "Baseball Lingo," long discarded by the Belleville Township High School East library (another sign of the decline of our educational system), defines it as

Fan-to-fan baseball conversation, discussion, or argument during the winter, so called because of the custom of a group of men sitting around a pot-bellied stove in the local general store to talk baseball.

Thanks to The Sporting News putting all of its issues into electronic format online, we were able to find a few fun references going back almost 100 years. Here are a couple:

In the Oct. 24, 1912 issue of TSN, in a section called "Interesting Side-Lights on Big Battles; Also Incidents Noticed After the Games":

While the newspaper men were leaving the press stand after one of the games a dyed-in-the wool American League rooter stood at the foot of the stairs and watched the scribes carefully as they passed out.

"Which one is Ty Cobb," he asked Walter Johnson, not knowing the identity of the Washington speed king.

"See that chap over there in the soft hat? That’s Cobb," said Johnson, as he ducked out of the way. Gleefully the fan walked over to a reporter wearing a soft hat and said:

"Hello, Tyrus, how have you been?"

Before the reporter could prove his identity, the fan was on his way with gossip for the hot stove league.

It’s hard to imagine in our video age someone like Jake Peavy pulling a similar prank on an Albert Pujols lookalike reporter. We’ll leave you with this poem offering timeless wisdom from the Jan. 1, 1920 TSN, which appears to have been submitted by a reader:

No Never Mind

If miners work or miners don’t
It makes no never mind,
Good fuel for the old hot stove
The fans will ever find.

For lack of coal and wood and oil
The fans will never balk,
Because the good old stove is fed
On talk and talk and talk.

By the way, if you want to join in the latest and, in our opinion, best Hot Stove League banter, come to the St. Louis SABR chapter’s roundtable discussion Monday night at Crusoe’s Restaurant (3152 Osceola St.) in south St. Louis city. The meeting begins at 6:45pm (come early for dinner) and is open to the public, and non-members are welcome to attend.

A few weeks ago, we noted that the Cardinals had no reason to improve their outfield, inasmuch as it was one of the most productive in the league last year by total Runs Created. We thought we’d expand the exercise to cover all of the offensive positions to see where, if anywhere, John Mozeliak and company might look to upgrade this winter:

Using ESPN’s latest numbers (they have a slight discrepancy from when we last ran them), the Cardinals created the second-most runs in the league, behind only Colorado (led by erstwhile leftfielder Matt Holliday).

An easier way to look at it is to compare the Cardinals with league average:

The Cardinals were outstanding in right- and center-field, above-average at third base, and, well, Albert Pujols outpaced every NL team’s total production at first base — by himself. Their catcher production was average (and might’ve been better, if Yadier Molina had played more), and, oddly enough, their cadre of second basemen was, too.

So that leaves only a couple of positions. It’s no surprise that the Cardinals were weakest at shortstop (going into the season, they knew it was their achilles heel). But, surprisingly, their leftfield hydra — with 14 different players, easily the most in the NL — also underperformed league average. So perhaps it wasn’t such a hairbrained idea to pursue Holliday, after all.

Of course, the bigger picture is that, even with their weaknesses at shortstop and left field, the offense wasn’t the problem in 2008. So if the Cardinals do want to upgrade their offense, they’ll have a shortstop and a leftfielder on their list (and perhaps a second baseman). But the more important need, as least as evidenced by their 2008 performance, is on the pitching mound.

The Cardinals have a well-stocked farm system for the first time in a while, so soon, perhaps even next year, they’ll be relying on rookies to contribute in big ways. 2008 wasn’t a stellar year for Cardinal rookies, but Kyle McClellan, Joe Mather, Brian Barton, Jason Motte and Chris Perez — the latter two of whom, if we’re not mistaken, still have of whom Motte still has rookie eligibility for next year — combined for 17 Win Shares (for more, DanUpBaby has a fine overview of their season over at VEB).

So the Cardinals didn’t figure in the 2008 RoY voting (by the way, we have to credit the BBWAA for getting the top three right this year), but perhaps they’ll have a contender or two in 2009. At any rate, the club has had some outstanding rookie campaigns (by Win Shares) — can you remember many of them? The best Cardinal rookie season all-time is easy — just go back seven years. The rest may surprise you:

Most fans are familiar with the first several players. But we thought we’d share some details about the lesser-known rookies. After all, once upon a time, they were the future of the franchise.

Lou Klein helped the Cardinals win the pennant with an MVP-type debut (he finished 23rd in the MVP voting) in 1943. He served in the military the next season and when he returned, he lost his second-base spot to a guy named Red Schoendienst, jumped to the Mexican League and was barred from organized baseball.

Ernie White finished sixth in the MVP voting his rookie year. He pitched only 128 1/3 innings his sophomore year and never regained his early form. After pitching for the Cardinals in the 1942 and 1943 World Series, He entered the Army in 1944. He later managed in the minor leagues.

Tom Long only played two seasons after his rookie year in which he put up a remarkable achievement: he led the league with 25 triples (the next-highest total was 17, from Honus Wagner). Only one player since then (Kiki Cuyler) has hit as many triples in a season.

Johnny Beazley was another rookie who proved a valuable pitcher for a Cardinal pennant winner. Splitting time between starting and relieving, he finished 13th in the MVP voting in 1942, and helped win two of the team’s World Series games en route to the championship. The enormously talented Beazley figured to be a rotation fixture for years to come, but he enlisted in the Army Air Corps after the season, and injured his arm pitching for an Army team. He returned with the Cardinals in 1946 but was never the same.

Emmet "Snags" Heidrick had his momentous rookie season playing for the St. Louis Perfectos, so we have a soft spot in our heart for him. Heidrick has the distinction of having played for the Perfectos, Cardinals and Browns.

Bob Bowman finished 30th in the MVP voting in 1939, mostly pitching as a reliever and what is today known as "closer" (he finished 19 games and led the league in Saves before they were Saves). But he pitched only one more year in St. Louis and his major-league career was finished two years later.

The future must’ve looked bright for the Cardinals back in 1902, when they had a trio of rookies who combined for 59 Win Shares (George Barclay, Homer Smoot and Mike O’Neill), and one returning player who had racked up 18 as a rookie the year before (Otto Krueger). Smoot and Barclay were the team’s top home run hitters that year with three each (the team had a total of 10). A retrospective SABR project designated Smoot as the National League’s best rookie. But things turned ugly the next year, and all four players declined and/or were off the team in a couple of years (and a rookie who earned 12 Win Shares in 1903, Mordecai Brown, was traded to the Cubs at the end of the year).

Also, Bill Virdon actually won the RoY in 1955, but had "only" 14 Win Shares, so he didn’t make the list.

When the headlines are that Chris Carpenter had surgery and Yadier Molina won a Gold Glove, it’s a slow week in baseball. So, of course, baseball observers everywhere turn to the time-honored November tradition of trade speculation. The big what-if from Friday is whether the Cardinals should or could trade Ryan Ludwick in a deal for the Rockies’ Matt Holliday. A few remarks:

• First, it’s possible that John Mozeliak is merely creating buzz for Ludwick. By associating Ludwick’s name with Holliday, Ludwick’s perceived market value increases.
• Just how big is Holliday’s home-road gap? We eschew batting average, since it has more noise than OBP, so we’ll use Gross Production Average, which combines OBP and SLG more intelligently than OPS. Holliday’s numbers then:
  

  	OBP	SLG	GPA
  Home	.423	.645	.352
  Away	.348	.455	.270

  His road production is about 77% of his home.

• And just how much of an advantage could Coors Field be? Let’s look at the average Batting Park Factors since Holliday debuted (2004), courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com:
  

  Team	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	BPF
  ARI	105	103	105	106	107	105
  ATL	101	101	100	97	99	100
  CHC	103	104	103	104	106	104
  CIN	98	100	104	104	104	102
  COL	113	112	109	108	107	110
  FLA	95	94	95	97	99	96
  HOU	102	101	100	99	98	100
  LAD	95	98	101	104	100	100
  MIL	100	101	101	101	100	101
  NYM	99	98	98	97	99	98
  PHI	105	105	105	105	103	105
  PIT	99	99	98	98	95	98
  SDP	90	92	91	91	89	91
  SFG	101	101	100	100	102	101
  STL	100	101	99	99	99	100
  MON/WAS	105	95	94	94	101	98

  Unquestionably, batters benefit from playing in Coors Field, even in the post-humidor era. But let’s do some rough math: Holliday’s road GPA is .270. Considering that the average park factor for his road games is about 99.4, his "adjusted" or "real" road GPA could be said to be .272. Now consider the ameliorative effects of Coors, and his home-adjusted GPA increases to .297. That’s a big jump, but nowhere near the .352 home GPA that Holliday actually has. Translation: Holliday’s numbers reflect more than a simple boost from what Coors offers from a park-factor standpoint.

• It’s a bit myopic for fans and writers to obsess about Holliday’s home-road splits, when Ryan Ludwick himself has a not-insignificant career home-road inequity. At home, Ludwick has a .300 GPA; on the road, it’s .269, which is about 90% of his home production. What, you say, Ludwick’s numbers don’t represent a reliance on a particular park, as he has called Jacobs Field and Rangers Ballpark home in addition to Busch? That’s precisely the point with Holliday: Since Holliday’s entire career has been played with Coors Field as his home field, it’s impossible to know whether his splits represent a park-influenced number or simply a home-park influence. That is, Holliday could simply hit better when he’s at home, wherever that home is. Granted, it’s certainly suspicious that his home park is easily the most batter-favorable park in the league, but, logically speaking, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is the reason for his production gap.
• Holliday is the poster child for home-road inequity. But we’ve never read anything about the similarly disparate home-road splits over the same period (since 2004) for such notables as Rafael Furcal, whom some have on their offseason wish list for the Cardinals and who has produced only 81% of his home GPA on the road, Craig Biggio, considered by many as a future Hall of Famer, who has 79% Oh, and is anyone going to mention that Aaron Miles (86%) can’t hit on the road, either? (Insert your own joke here.)
• At any rate, strategically speaking, we prefer the idea of trading Ludwick for young middle-infield help (such as the rumored Kelly Johnson deal). Given the reality that shortages among corner-outfielders rarely occur (that’s the reason Ludwick is expendable in the first place), and that 2B and SS are so far at the right end of the defensive spectrum, a second baseman whose offense is less than Ludwick’s can still be a very good deal.
• With the supposed complication for a Holliday trade being the need for reaching a contract extension, we think we’d rather trade for Holliday _without_ the extension. He’s a year younger than Ludwick, and all of his last three years were better than Ludwick’s best. And Ludwick has a history of injury. The only reason Ludwick is more valuable is long-term, and the Cardinals would exacerbate that loss by paying more money for a declining Holliday, post-2009.

Smelling a rat
We briefly touched on Whitey Herzog’s bizarre "World Series Week” idea last week, but his plan is so wacko that it deserves further critique. Among the planks:

• The World Series would be played at an MLB-built grass-field, retractable-roof stadium in a neutral Central time zone city, such as Nashville, Tenn.
• The stadium would be large enough for every season ticketholder of the two competing teams would have a chance to buy a ticket to the Series.

Some of the ideas — more accommodating start times, beginning the series on Saturday, having an afternoon game — are very reasonable. But like many bad ideas, the overall proposal sprinkles some good with some very bad, the worst of which is Herzog’s neutral-site concoction, which itself is based on flawed logic:

“You’ve got the old school people in baseball who say that you’re taking the World Series away from the home fans and all that,” he said. “That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. If you’re really going to be honest, the hometown fans (because of high ticket prices) don’t get to see the World Series anyway.”

Our understanding (and first-hand experience) is that plenty of hometown fans get to attend the World Series; we dare say that the vast majority of fans at the games are locals, or at least regionals. We’re sympathetic to Herzog’s concern that MLB is currently cutting off its future with young and even dedicated adult fans with some of its policies (though we disagree with Herzog’s methodology for determining the national pastime). But playing the World Series at a neutral site isn’t the answer. We don’t necessarily know the answer ourselves, but we proposed a couple of weeks ago that it might have to do with revamping the current playoff format, which rewards second-place teams, draws out the playoffs and creates less-competitive World Series.

It’s funny that the White Rat is remembered in St. Louis for his "traditional" baseball approach, and yet his ideas these days are so avant garde as to be risible.

Bombs away
SI’s Joe Posnanski gives a sneak peek of a new stat from the forthcoming Bill James Handbook, one at which the Cardinal manager does well — "bombs," which is effectiveness of intentional walks as measured by multiple runs scoring after the walks:

Every year they add some great new statistic like one that breaks down how managers do their jobs… The best intentional walker? St. Louis’ Tony La Russa, of course. Only one out of 21 bombed.

Posnanski also notes the book’s baserunning ratings, which take into consideration non-stolen base running events. The best? Matt Holliday. No.4 was Kelly Johnson. Do we detect a strategy from Mozeliak?

For all you first-time callers, longtime readers
A few of the United Cardinal Bloggers will be participating in a live radio show on BlogTalkRadio this Wednesday starting at 9pm Central.. Be sure to tune in and/or give us a call. You can also listen to the inaugural radio show from 10/27.

The oozing blisters on his hand should be gone by Opening Day
St. Louis Cardinals Yadier Molina reacts to Gold Glove — Post-Dispatch headline

Breaking news from Sept. 23
St. Louis Cardinals make offseason plans — Post-Dispatch headline

He’s only 170 pounds as it is
Yankees chances at getting Mike Cameron slim — Newsday headline

In the offseason, he loves to play Pictionary
Closer Cordero drawing interest — MLB.com headline

Bottom stories of the week:
• More surgery for Carpenter — P-D headline
• Mozeliak making no immediate moves — MLB.com headline
• Mulder officially files for free agency — MLB.com headline
• Hawkins coming back to Houston — MLB.com headline

We have a winner
We offer belated kudos to Nate McKie for winning our second-annual playoff fantasy challenge. His team — the Wild Card Rocks! — tallied a total of 134.9 Runs Created:

Fellow blogger C70 at the Bat was second with 111.8 Runs Created. The key to Nate’s win seems to have been Jason Werth, who was overlooked by all the other "managers." For his prize, Nate gets a guest post on Fungoes. So congrats on a well-earned win, but mark our words: It’s the last time we let a Wild Card team win our little contest.

Kudos to Yadier Molina on winning his first Gold Glove. In recent years, the shine of the Gold Glove has diminished in light of some highly questionable selections as well as some more-thoughtful alternatives, such as the Fielding Bible Awards. And if some of the commentary on Molina’s 2008 campaign, such as the dubious dispatch from the P-D’s Rick Hummel ("he was being rewarded, in part, for his previous accomplishments") or the blog post from VEB’s ChuckB ("the worst [year] of his career"), is to be believed, Molina is as deserving this year as Rafael Palmeiro was in 1999 (when he played all of 28 games in the field). Is the criticism justified, or was Molina, as Tony La Russa asserted, "the best catcher in the league"?

Hummel and ChuckB both cite Molina’s Caught Stealing rate as evidence against the Cardinal backstop. But, as we argued almost exactly a year ago, CS% is a stat fraught with noise, not the least of which are pitcher ability to prevent stolen bases and the quality of runners faced. At the time, we proposed that CS rates be considered in light of both of these elements, including something we called Quality of Runners Faced (QRF):

Take all of the runners who challenged a catcher, subtract their stolen-base attempts and successes vs. that catcher, and you’ve got a QRF factor for that catcher. You could refine it further: Of the runners that a catcher allowed to steal a base, determine their QRF — call it the catcher’s SB QRF. And get the QRF for all the runners that the catcher nabbed, and call it his CS QRF.

So, while Hummel notes that YaMo threw out only 16 of 50 base stealers (32%), it’s very possible, especially given his reputation, that the runners who challenged him skewed better in terms of their stealing ability. Was that the case in 2008? Here’s a log of YaMo’s opponents by successful steals and caught:

Removing the attempts against Molina, baserunners who tried to steal on him this past season had a 76.5% success rate. National League average was 73.0%. To convert that into something somewhat useful, such as adjusted OPS or ERA, Molina’s QRF is 105 (SB%/LgSB%). Molina’s competition was, as a group, better than league average. (Just for grins, we ran the numbers for backup catcher Jason LaRue. His competition was even tougher: 77.3% for a 106 QRF). Last season, Yadier’s competition had an 80.3% rate, giving the catcher a 106 QRF. If we had more time, we could determine how Yadier’s QRF ranks among his fellow catchers. Our guess is that it’s among the best.

Furthermore, the fact remains that Molina had the fewest stolen-base attempts per game, by a lot (25% better than the 2nd-best). And, after all, he allowed only 34 SBs, the fewest stolen bases of any qualified catcher in baseball (and that, despite facing better-than-average competition). As far as a catcher’s ability to prevent the running game goes, isn’t that the bottom line?

Though the Cardinals’ signing of free-agent Jason LaRue won’t drive many fans to order season tickets, for $950,000, if it’s “a popular move within the team’s holdover pitching staff,” according to Joe Strauss, it’s good enough for us. The other side of the coin is that catching prospect Bryan Anderson will likely start the 2009 with Memphis, which is a positive for the organization. Playing everyday in the minors will allow Anderson to improve on his .260 GPA that he had in 275 PAs in AAA last year — time better spent for both him and the big club than if he, and not LaRue, were backing up Yadier Molina. In the worst case, if Molina goes down, the Cardinals could call up Anderson and give him everyday reps at the major-league level. Either way, LaRue (whose pre-2008 projected MORP for 2009 was $775,000) won’t receive a majority of playing time.

The team’s other free agents are a bit trickier. Some thoughts on each:

• Shortstop Cesar Izturis: Apparently, the Cardinals are hoping to upgrade at shortstop. That’s theoretically possible, but not likely through free agency. Granted, Izturis carried a whiffleball bat in 2008, but, as we predicted at midseason, his batting average rebounded a bit because it was depressed by a below-average BABIP. And his defense — evidenced by his .869 RZR (second in baseball) — was no small factor in the team’s above-average DER of .697, which the pitching staff enjoyed. But if the team spurns Izturis, tThe leading free-agent candidate, Edgar Renteria, isn’t the answer. Not only has he lost a step in the field, his offensive production has fallen, too. His OBP last year? .317. Izturis’s? .319.
• Righthander Braden Looper: We’re not sure what Looper did to lose favor and find himself on the outside looking in. The workhorse was third on the team in Pitching Runs Created in 2008, and yet a guy like Joel Pineiro is under contract for $7.5 million. Looper is a Type-B free agent, and given the team’s need for a reliable starter (and please don’t anyone say that Chris Carpenter may return), offering Looper arbitration is a no-brainer.
• Infielder Felipe Lopez: It’s too bad that Lopez, who had a 4.8 RC/7 last year, didn’t earn at least a B rating from Elias, given that Juan Uribe — 3.7 — and Mark Loretta — 4.6 — both did. It’s somewhat academic, anyway, since Lopez seems likely to sign with the Cardinals. And that’s probably a good thing: Lopez ranked eighth among the league’s second basemen with at least 375 PAs in RC. Despite some memorable misplays, his defense wasn’t horrible, and he can spell Troy Glaus at third base. If for some reason things don’t work out with Lopez, the only free agent second baseman worth considering is Type-A Orlando Hudson. We’ve advocated for his signing in the past, and if the Cardinals do upgrade someone in the middle infield, our strong preference is for Hudson.
• Righthander Russ Springer: Springer is an A, so the team would gain a first-round pick if he spurned arbitration and signed somewhere else. But the likely scenario that he would like to return renders that strategy moot. His pre-2008 projected MORP for 2009 was $2,350,000, and, while he had a fine 2008 earning a 17.6 VORP, he doesn’t stand to warrant last year’s $3.5 million, becoming as he did the team’s ROOGy. Without solid relief in the system, the Cardinals should take a chance and offer Springer arbitration.
• Lefthander Ron Villone: The last three seasons, Villone has had an expected FIP higher than 5.00. And that’s facing a subset of batters against whom he has a platoon advantage. We rest our case. Certainly the Cardinals need to upgrade their LOOGy situation. But the name most-bandied about, Brian Fuentes (who, to be sure, is more than a LOOGy), is a Type-A free agent, so what was a longshot at a good value (overpaying relievers is a Moneyball no-no) should be prohibitively so, considering that the Cardinals would probably have to also surrender a first-rounder for him.
• Jason Isringhausen: Isringhausen’s B rating makes an arbitration offer a less-appealing plan. The risk — that the Cardinals would lose the arbitration and have to sign a possibly-feckless Isringhausen for a lot of money — outweighs the reward — receiving a supplemental pick.

After five shoddily-scheduled games of lackluster baserunning, a dearth of heroics and plays made memorable only because of questionable umpiring judgment, the longest-seeming five-game World Series is mercifully over. It’s a sad thing to say about the National Pastime, but when reliable old codgers like Whitey Herzog are proposing plans like “World Series Week,” it’s likely that Major League Baseball has fallen over the precipice. These are strange times, indeed.

Thankfully, we can find solace in the more certain world of statistics. In particular, we’d like to check out the win-probability added for this year’s series contestants. Courtesy of Fangraphs.com, the best to worst total WPA for the series (totals include both pitching and batting events for pitchers):

Without any Albert Pujols to face, Brad Lidge was able to exorcise some of his playoff demons with .365 WPA spanning two appearances. For comparison, Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon pitched three times in last year’s four-game series and earned .561 WPA. Boston starter Jon Lester pitched one game and had almost as much as Lidge did — .364. 2007 World Series MVP Mike Lowell accrued .243 WPA.

WPA illustrates who came up big for the Phillies — Lidge, JC Romero, series MVP Cole Hamels, Jason Werth, et al — and who didn’t for the Rays — Evan Longoria, Scott Kazmir, Carlos Pena and BJ Upton. With his four GIDPs, including one resulting from an ill-advised first-pitch swing with Carl Crawford on first in the eighth inning of Game 5, Upton sapped a lot of momentum from the Rays. And WPA reveals that the poor performances from Pena and Longoria didn’t just look bad in the box scores — they really cost the team in terms of chances to win.

The good news for the Rays, of course, is that they have every reason to believe they can return to the playoffs (which, after all, is the goal, these days, isn’t it?). But their real achievement was in the regular season, which, given the current state of the World Series, is probably the most-interesting “season” of baseball, anyway, where bigger sample sizes reign, titles actually mean something and kids can occasionally watch a game.

With free-agent-to-be Pat Burrell receiving some exposure this month in the playoffs, some Cardinal fans have expressed their interest in the Phillies’ left fielder. But do the Cardinals need to pursue an outfielder this offseason? Probably not, if the production from their outfield cadre in 2008 is any indication. Cardinal outfielders ranked first in the league in total Runs Created (ESPN version):

The team controls all but one of their outfielders. Ryan Ludwick figures to be an interesting but not exorbitantly expensive arbitration case, if it gets that far. Rick Ankiel shouldn’t break the bank. Essentially, the team has three players who can play centerfield reasonably well (Skip Schumaker, Ludwick and Ankiel are similarly adept). Adding Joe Mather and/or Brian Barton, and the big "if" Chris Duncan provides depth that affords the luxury of Colby Rasmus’s further minor-league development. The question, of course, is whether it’s reasonable to assume that the same group of outfielders can repeat its 2008 production. Even given a slight decline in Ludwick’s performance, it’s reasonable to expect that, on the whole, the group will at least come within 10% of last year’s work. And if that’s the case, outfield probably isn’t the first place John Mozeliak should start when looking for outside help.

Speaking of Burrell and the Phillies: If they win the Series, it will be the beginning of a strong case that the National League has turned the tide and can no longer be considered the weaker league. Anothe bit of evidence: The NL’s outfields were more productive than the AL’s.

Is Peavy worth it?
Whether the Cardinals could or even want to trade for Jake Peavy is still academic. But for reference, we thought we’d check to see if he’s even worth it. Let’s compare his contract with his projected MORP (Market Value Over Replacement Player):

Since MORP measures value over replacement player, who still costs at least league minimum, Peavy’s existing contract represents a good value. Whether it’s a good value for the Padres or the Cardinals — or someone else — remains to be seen.

You can stuff your sorries in a sack
Upon the Cardinals’ buyout of his 2009 option, Mark Mulder cried some crocodile tears. "I would have given up anything to have done well in that city and with that team," the Post-Dispatch quoted him as saying. The not-yet-cynical among us will appreciate Mulder’s seemingly magnanimous comments. But we’ve heard it before, and, after all, this is a guy who doesn’t have a contract for next year and presumably would like to work again in baseball. It’s hard to believe Mulder is all that sincere, when he just accepted $1.5 from the Cardinals for his option year. How about you just return the money (after paying your agent’s cut) and we’ll call it, well, "even" is a bit much. Let’s just say we’ll let you be a by-gone, Mark.

But do they like like him?
Brewers seem to like Macha — Journal-Sentinel headline

Their work here on earth is finished
Angels to bring back Vlad, P Lackey — SI.com headline

Things we’d rather not have explained
Maddon skeptical of explanation of Blanton’s cap stain — St. Petersburg Times headline

News of the tautological
Several factors affect White Sox in free agency — Chicago Tribune headline

"Hey, we’ve seen that year before!"
Players recognize Pujols’ monster year — MLB.com headline

Bottom stories of the week:

• Oates steps in to sing anthem for Hall — MLB.com headline
• Rays react to loss — Boston Globe headline
• Cards’ Pujols garners another award — MLB headline

The end of baseball as we know it
Does Bug Selig have a death wish for Major League Baseball? We understand that he’s old and probably wants to cash in now on some fame, but his short-sighted decisions to first televise only half of the league-championship games on a broadcast network and to then have every World Series game played no earlier than 7:30pm Central time (among other things) are dooming the national pastime to a lack of future fan base. Andy McCarthy explains (hat tip: Double-M):

What is wrong with baseball? I have a 6-year-old who fell in love with the game this year. All he wanted to do was watch some of the World Series, which just f-i-n-a-l-l-y started a few minutes ago. It’s a school night. I told him he could watch an inning, then I cut it to a batter, then, eventually, just the first pitch. Why? Because we sat through 15 minutes of commercials waiting for the game to start.

Baseball has allowed television to take over the post-season. I am a nut for the game, and I gave up in the fourth inning of Game 7 between the Rays and the Sox the other night — I couldn’t stay awake through the extended commercial breaks between innings. A few years back, I gave up Monday Night Football for the same reason.

No more day games in the World Series, they don’t start to play til after 830pm Eastern, and the games take 4 hours to play. If your team’s not in it, who can watch that? What kids — y’know, the people the game has to hook if it’s going to sustain its fat paydays — can stay up for that?

I finally got so aggravated, I turned it off. I’m a junkie, so of course I’ll eventually turn it back on, but not tonight. And if they make me, a die-hard fan, feel that way, how can they possibly hold normal people who have plenty of other things they’d just as soon be doing?

Alas, we suppose McCarthy’s argument is far too logical for Bud Selig. And we don’t care what your politics are, this story has to bother any self-respecting American:

Barack Obama might have the power to move the World Series by a few minutes.

To accommodate a half-hour Obama time buy on Fox on Oct. 29, Major League Baseball has agreed to move the start time of World Series Game 6 by about 15 minutes. That would move the start of the game from 8:20 p.m. ET or so to 8:35 p.m. “Fox will accommodate Senator Obama’s desire to communicate with voters in this longform format,” Fox Sports said in a statement. “We are pleased that Major League Baseball has agreed to delay the first pitch of World Series Game 6 for a few minutes in order for Fox to carry his program on Oct. 29. If requested, the network would be willing to make similar time available to Senator McCain’s campaign.”

Audacity of hope, indeed! (And so much for Fox being a conservative pawn.) No matter whether Obama or McCain gets elected president next week, Americans will have a choice in getting rid of him in four years. Would that Americans had the same option for the Commissioner of Baseball.

We’ve saved the best group of biggest plays for last: The Cardinals’ biggest positive win-probability plays. Interestingly enough, four of the top five occurred in the month of July, and Troy "Big Play" Glaus had three of them.

.455: Troy Glaus hits three-run home run, May 13
Pirate pitcher Phil Dumatrait was cruising with a 2-0 lead. The Cardinals had managed only two hits and a walk against him through five innings. But in the sixth, Brian Barton walked, then with two outs Ryan Ludwick walked to bring up Troy Glaus. Glaus then slammed a three-run blast, swinging a 75.1% win expectancy for the Pirates to a 70.5% WE for the home team. The Pirates responded with two runs of their own in the seventh, Albert Pujols tied it in the eighth and the game went to extra innings. Ron Villone let it get away, and the Pirate scored four time in the 10th to win 8-4, wasting Glaus’s heroics.

.464: Troy Glaus homers, July 2
The Cardinals-Mets rivalry isn’t what it once was, but the two teams can still produce some drama. In the rubber game of their July series at Busch, the Cardinals jumped out to a 4-0 lead, but the Mets had tied it by the fifth inning. Rick Ankiel homered to make it 5-4 Cards, then the Mets added three runs in the seventh. Down two runs in the eighth inning, Ludwick was hit by a pitch, and Chris Duncan, who had snapped a 94-plate appearance home-run drought two days before, ripped a game-tying home run, itself worth .364 WPA. That set the stage for Glaus, who faced rookie Carlos Muniz, off whom Duncan had homered in the opener. With the Cardinals’ WE at 53.6%, Glaus hit a walkoff home run to boost it to an even 100%.

.486: Albert Pujols hits two-run home run, July 26
The Cardinals rematched the Mets later in the month at Shea. After dropping the first game, the Cardinals struck first again with four runs in the first inning. But again the Mets rallied to tie it, then went ahead in the fourth, 5-4. Albert Pujols drove in Skip Schumaker to tie it in the sixth, and the Cardinals tacked on three more to go up 8-5. Carlos Delgado’s two-run home run in the bottom half cut it to 8-7, and just when the Cardinals looked like they would win, up a run in the ninth, old friend Fernando Tatis hit a game-tying dinger worth .437 WPA. It wasn’t until the 14th, when Aaron Heilman surrendered a two-run blast to Albert (again scoring Schumaker). Brad Thompson shut the Mets down in order in their half, and the Cardinals preserved their thrilling win. With his five-hit performance, Pujols had a season-high .748 WPA for the game.

.642: Troy Glaus hits three-run home run, July 20
Jaime Garcia’s first big-league start began inauspiciously when the Padres’ Scott Hairston led off the game with a home run. Rick Ankiel tied it, and Garcia settled in for a while, until he gave up a two-run blow to pitcher Cha Seung Baek, who took one of the slowest home-run trots we’ve ever seen. The Cardinals cut the deficit to 3-2 in the seventh and rallied more in the eighth against Padre ace setup man Heath Bell. Skip Schumaker singled, then after Aaron Miles failed to advance Schumaker with a sac bunt attempt, Ludwick singled. But Bell got a big strikeout of Rick Ankiel, and Glaus stepped in with two on and two out and a WE of only 28.6%. Glaus took Bell deep for a three-run bomb, a 5-3 lead and a new WE of 92.9%. Oddly enough, while it was the biggest play of the game in terms of WPA, Glaus’s home run wasn’t the most memorable of the game. After the Cardinals surrendered the lead in the ninth, Albert Pujols started a rally in the bottom half with a one-out walk. Padre catcher Luke Carlin threw a wild pickoff attempt into right field, and Pujols went to third. The Padres intentionally walked the next two batters to bring up Aaron Miles, who smacked a walkoff grand slam. Tony La Russa later referred to the strange win as "Fantasy Island."

.727: Rick Ankiel hits walk-off two-run single, July 5
Interestingly, two of the biggest plays of 2008 occurred in the same game. Last week, we noted that the July 5 matchup with the Cubs had one of the biggest win-probability subtracted plays (aka, "chokes"). But it also had the biggest win-probability added plays. Happily, the positive one came last. To review, it was a sunny Saturiday afternoon at Busch with the Cardinals trying to close to 2.5 games with the Cubs. The Cubs led the whole game, but the Cardinals began pecking away at the Cubs’ 4-2 lead in the ninth off closer Kerry Wood. Ludwick and Yadier Molina walked, and Adam Kennedy made it a new ballgame with an RBI double to change the Cards’ chance of winning from 32.8% to 72.5% (.397 WPA). After Duncan walked to load the bases with none out, Wood retired Schumaker and Miles, reducing the home team’s WE to 27.3% and putting the game in the hands of Rick Ankiel, who had already singled and homered. Could he come through again? On an 0-1 curveball, Ankiel rapped a liner to right-center, scoring Kennedy and Duncan (who beat Jim Edmonds’s throw), giving the Cardinals their first victory of the year when they trailed after eight innings.